Bump and Update: The Supreme Court has denied the request for a stay. The execution has taken place. Bland was declared dead at 6:19 pm. I hope for his sake they started late -- 19 minutes is a long time.

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I can only imagine how the civilized world will view this story. Jimmy Dale Bland is set to be executed at 6pm tonight in Oklahoma.

Bland has advanced lung cancer which has spread to his hip and brain. He's terminally ill and will die soon on his own.

The Oklahoma state and federal courts have denied a stay, insisting the state has the right to kill him before he expires on his own.

In a dissenting opinion, Judge Charles Chapel of Tulsa said a stay should be granted to protect "the dignity of society itself from the barbarity of exacting mindless vengeance."

A last-minute decision from the Supreme Court is expected any time now.

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If you have cable, a 2 hour special is on the Biography channel tonight, The Death Penalty on Trial.

The show examines four cases of people wrongly sentenced to death. The cases show instances of incompetent counsel, biased judges and prosecutorial misconduct.

The federal judge in California who issued a ban on California executions until the lethal injection issues were fixed, has extended the moratorium.

California's 15-month-old moratorium on executions was extended at least until October on Friday to give a federal judge time to visit a planned new death chamber at San Quentin and consider an array of proposed changes in the state's lethal injection procedures.

At a hearing in San Jose, U.S. District Judge Jeremy Fogel said he needs to see the rebuilt execution chamber before hearing arguments on the state's revisions in prison staff selection, training and infusion of the lethal chemicals.

Judge Fogel will visit San Quentin in October. After that, appeals are likely.

Here's why California needed a moratorium:

In Canon City on Saturday, for the first time a tombstone will be placed on the grave of an executed prisoner. His name is Joseph Arridy.

This Saturday, June 2, 2007, at 11 a.m. in Canon City’s Greenwood Cemetery, a dignifying tombstone will be placed on the grave of death row inmate Joe Arridy. Arridy was executed in the Canon City prison gas chamber on January 6, 1939, and buried on top of Woodpecker Hill. The tombstone, which will feature an etching of a replica of Joe’s toy train, is being placed and dedicated by a number of citizens in the Pikes Peak Region who have taken a newfound interest in Arridy’s life and death. Evidence uncovered in the past decade indicates that he was a victim of police and prosecutorial misconduct. This is the first time in the history of Colorado that a personalized tombstone will be placed on the grave of an executed prisoner.

Arridy was mentally retarded and had the mind of a five year old. The warden gave him toys to play with.

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Christopher Newton was put to death like a dog in Ohio yesterday. The execution took two hours and ten attempts.

The execution team stuck Christopher Newton at least 10 times with needles Thursday to insert the shunts where the chemicals are injected.

He died at 11:53 a.m., nearly two hours after the scheduled start of his execution at the Southern Ohio Correctional Facility. The process typically takes about 20 minutes.

"What is clear from today's botched execution is that the state doesn't know how to execute people without torturing them to death," American Civil Liberties Union of Ohio attorney Carrie Davis said Thursday.

On the other hand, you wouldn't do a dog this way.

A Chicago jury today returned a verdict recommending life without parole for Juan Luna, whom it convicted last week of murdering seven people at a restaurant.

The sentencing deliberations took only two hours. Luna was 18 at the time of the killings. The defense argument:

Today, during closing arguments in the defense portion of the death penalty phase, Luna's lawyer Burch asked jurors to disregard prosecutors' portrayal of Luna as a cold-blooded monster.

"The state portrayed Juan Luna as an evil individual who has no heart. … They are trying to dehumanize him, make him less than a person and then step on him,'' Burch said as he stomped his foot in the courtroom. "He's a human being. The same blood flowing through his heart and veins is flowing through ours."

"I'm asking you to lean toward life, lean toward life because justice has been served,'' Burch said." Death is not the answer, taking life for a life. … Temper justice with mercy. I'm pleading with you to express mercy."

Eric Zorn in the Chicago Tribune says the case is a signal it's time to end the death penalty.

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California prison authorities proposed their new plan for executions today, aimed at alleviating criticism over past practices, in which there was no assurance the dying inmate wasn't feeling pain.

Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger praised the new plan.

Aiming at ending a 16-month legal moratorium on capital punishment in California, state corrections officials today proposed new lethal injection execution procedures they say "will result in the dignified end of life" for condemned inmates.

The state acted in response to a December decision by U.S. District Judge Jeremy Fogel, who concluded that the state's implementation of the death penalty amounted to cruel and unusual punishment and may have subjected six inmates to excruciatingly painful ends.

The new proposals are listed below:

In an interview in the Kansas City Star yesterday, author John Grisham calls for a moratorium on all death penalties due to flaws in the system -- and for its permanent abolition in the U.S.

Grisham, whose books have sold more than 200 million copies worldwide, emphasized he was expressing his personal views..... it is his personal view that the death penalty is immoral.

“I’m a Christian, and you’ll never convince me that Jesus taught revenge killings are what Christians are supposed to be doing.”

He also calls for an end to snitch testimony:

“Let’s start with the basic concept of a fair trial. We are so far away from that in every state in this country.”

“Snitch testimony” should be outlawed, Grisham added. In some cases, including that involving Williamson and Fritz, prosecutors have paid individuals for their testimony. In other instances, prosecutors have hidden evidence or refused to share exculpatory evidence with defense lawyers.

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Who devised the three-drug cocktail for lethal injections? An Oklahoma doctor and medical examiner named Jay Chapman. 30 years later, and in the face of numerous court challenges, he defends his baby.

A sample of his thoughts:

If states are looking for a way to quickly and painlessly put someone to death, he has a suggestion.

"There is absolutely nothing wrong with the guillotine," he said impatiently. "It can be operated by an idiot and it is a very effective instrument."

Phillip Workman's request for a last meal was unusual:

The 53-year-old requested a vegetarian pizza be delivered to a homeless person in Nashville, Workman's attorney confirmed.

Offered the choice between the electric chair and lethal injection, Workman just said no.

"I'm not going to play no killing game," he told CNN in an exclusive interview last month.

The State chose to end his life with a lethal injection last night. Workman was executed for killing a police officer more than 25 years ago.

The New Jersey Senate will vote Thursday on a bill to abolish the state's death penalty.

New Jersey is set to consider becoming the first state to abolish the death penalty legislatively since capital punishment was reinstated 31 years ago. A Senate committee is slated Thursday to consider replacing the death penalty with life imprisonment without parole.

The initiative stems from a January report from a special commission appointed by the Legislature. The panel determined New Jersey’s death penalty costs taxpayers more than paying for prisoners to serve life terms and concluded there was no evidence the death penalty deters people from committing murders.

“There is increasing evidence that the death penalty is inconsistent with evolving standards of decency,” the report said.

Will it happen? It's possible. Both Gov. Jon Corzine and the leaders of both houses in the legislature oppose the death penalty.

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A punishment that has always been cruel is now cruel and unusual. Nebraska is the only death penalty State that offers no method of execution other than electrocution. Carey Dean Moore was spared that fate yesterday when the Nebraska Supreme Court agreed to review the constitutionality of the State's plan to use a lethal surge of electricity to end his life.

State Supreme Court Judge John Gerrard wrote that recent U.S. Supreme Court decisions "at least raised the question whether electrocution is constitutional."

"Our constitutional responsibility to decide whether electrocution is lawful requires us to consider whether any convicted person should be electrocuted ...," Gerrard wrote.

The state's abandoned protocol called for a series of shocks, a prolonged process more consistent with torture than a humane approach to execution. Nebraska's new protocol, the one that the court will review, calls for a single jolt of electricity that, while massive, may not suffice to kill.

Under the protocol announced Wednesday, officials would wait 18 minutes to determine whether an inmate is dead and administer a second jolt if the heart is still beating.

And so the inmate, having miraculously survived a figurative lightning bolt, must wait 18 minutes before a second shock ends his life. By what definition is this not cruel?